‘The Lowest-Profile State Department in 45 Years,’ in 2 Charts

A calendar of press briefings since 1991, with comments from 6 Former Spokespeople

State Department Daily Briefings Per Week by Presidential Administration

Donald J. Trump

Barack Obama

George W. Bush

Bill Clinton

George H.W. Bush

1.2

4.1

3.9

At least 3.2

At least 3.2

Estimates for Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush are probably too low; archives are missing records from some periods in those administrations.

State Department Daily Briefings Per Week by Presidential Administration

Donald J. Trump

Barack Obama

George W. Bush

Bill Clinton

George H.W. Bush

1.2

4.1

3.9

At least 3.2

At least 3.2

Estimates for Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush are probably too low; archives are missing records from some periods in those administrations.

State Department Daily Briefings Per Week by Presidential Administration

Donald J. Trump

Barack Obama

George W. Bush

Bill Clinton

George H.W. Bush

1.2

4.1

3.9

At least 3.2

At least 3.2

Estimates for Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush are probably too low; archives are missing records from some periods in those administrations.

State Department Daily Briefings Per Week by Presidential Administration

Donald J. Trump

Barack Obama

George W. Bush

Bill Clinton

George H.W. Bush

1.2

4.1

3.9

At least 3.2

At least 3.2

Estimates for Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush are probably too low; archives are missing records from some periods in those administrations.

State Department Daily Briefings Per Week by Presidential Administration

Donald J. Trump

Barack Obama

George W. Bush

Bill Clinton

George H.W. Bush

1.2

4.1

3.9

At least 3.2

At least 3.2

Estimates for Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush are probably too low; archives are missing records from some periods in those administrations.

State Department Daily Briefings Per Week by Presidential Administration

Donald J. Trump

Barack Obama

George W. Bush

Bill Clinton

George H.W. Bush

1.2

4.1

3.9

At least 3.2

At least 3.2

Estimates for Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush are probably too low; archives are missing records from some periods in those administrations.

The foreign policy of the United States is being tested around the world: in Russia, North Korea and acrossthe Middle East. But an important element of advancing it – the State Department press briefing – is at its most infrequent levels in decades under President Trump and his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson.

These briefings had been a near-daily occurrence in both Republican and Democratic presidential administrations, dating to the Iran hostage crisis. But there were no daily press briefings at all for more than a month after Mr. Trump’s inauguration, and none again in May. They are now held twice per week.

Using the State Department’s webarchives, we created a calendar of more than 5,000 State Department daily press briefings spanning five presidential administrations. Days colored with a indicate a day with a press briefing.

Explore them all below – and click any of them to go to the transcript for that day – or click here to skip to the end, where we’ve collected comments from six former State Department press officers since 1991.

Daily press briefing

Holiday or holiday observance

Missing or incomplete data

These estimates probably undercount briefings before 2001.

The daily briefings are happening less often, but now that there are so many ways outside the briefing to communicate with the American public and the world, how relevant are they? We put this question to six former State Department spokesmen and spokeswomen from the administrations of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Most – but not all – of the six were sharply critical of the current State Department’s approach to press briefings.

“There’s no question this is the lowest-profile State Department in 45 years,” said P.J. Crowley, a spokesman from 2009 to 2011 in the Obama administration. “I can’t think of a comparable situation.”

“They are objectively overturning a lot of the fundamental pillars of America’s bipartisan foreign policy,” said R. Nicholas Burns, a spokesman from 1995 to 1997 in the Clinton administration and the nation’s third-ranking diplomat under President George W. Bush.

“If that’s what they wish to do, they’re not really winning the argument because they’re not making the argument,” he added. “They’re not out there.”

“Not being on camera, the downside of it is that if you’re not occupying visual space, then the 24-hour channels will go with somebody else. You’ve got to be visually present in the markets that people are following,” said Richard Boucher, spokesman in 1992 and 1993 in the George H.W. Bush administration and from 2000 to 2005 in the administration of George W. Bush. “During the Iraq war, we knew Al Jazeera was 24 hours [a day] of people talking about us. We figured, if we can get on their airwaves for 30 minutes a day, that’s great. There’s only 23.5 other hours to worry about.”

“People need to be held accountable in government on a daily basis,” said Michael McCurry, a spokesman from 1993 to 1995 in the Clinton administration who later served as White House spokesman.

“There’s almost nothing that will motivate a decision on how we publicly want to portray ourselves more than the reality that the spokesperson is going to be asked about it in the briefing,” said Jen Psaki, a spokeswoman from 2013 to 2015 in the Obama administration. “When you’re not doing [the briefing], you’re essentially removing us from the conversation.”

The six stressed the importance of the daily briefing to American foreign policy beyond merely informing the American public.

In a briefing, “if you changed one sentence of existing U.S. policy, it could set off fire alarms in that country,” said Margaret Tutwiler, a spokeswoman from 1989 to 1992 in the administration of George H.W. Bush. “I can promise you it gets noticed. Instantly. As crazy as it sounds, other governments read these things.”

“At State, the only currency is words,” she added. “You can call it diplomacy, you can call it whatever you want. They don’t have aircraft carriers. They have words.”

“It was a very useful way to communicate with foreign governments, particularly with those with which we didn’t have official relations,” Mr. Burns said. “The vehicle for that is the press corps.”

“Foreign governments read the briefing and take that as it should be taken: as a signal of where the U.S. is on a variety of foreign policy issues,” Ms. Psaki said. “There were many times when a foreign leader would call Secretary [John] Kerry the afternoon of the briefing to complain about something that was said or ask about something that was said. Ninety percent of the time, what was said was intentional.”

“When you know you’re going to get tough questions on policy, it forces people in government to hone their policy,” Mr. McCurry said. “The process of answering the question – day in, day out – forces those [spokesmen] to come up with better answers, which usually means they come up with better policy. That’s what you miss when you’re not held accountable every day.”

“I agree with that 100 percent,” Mr. Boucher said.

Not all of them said they thought the press briefing needed to be live, daily or on-camera.

“The on-camera aspect I have a lot of trouble with,” Mr. McCurry said.“Turning it into a live television show is not a good idea. It’s this constant 24-7 that has changed the environment.”

“It doesn’t have to take place as a set theater piece, but you have to be answering questions every day. You owe it to the American people who are paying your salary,” Mr. Boucher said. With policy briefings, written statements and regional bureaus, the State Department under President Trump is “finding ways to get information out,” he said. “I like having enough briefings, but I don’t like having the spokesman up there for just entertainment or occupying airtime.”

One reason they lament the end of daily briefings is they are wide-ranging, deeply substantial and (usually) nonpolitical.

“I briefed daily. And we prepared very hard for this. These were tough, substantive briefings,” Mr. Burns said. “The great majority of us were career people. These people were not and still are not political.”

“The process of preparing for the daily briefing took somewhere between six and eight hours,” Mr. Crowley said. “The White House briefing is partly about policy but mostly about politics. The State Department briefing is very much about policy. It is far more substantive than its White House counterpart.”

“They are not a bunch of ‘gotcha’ reporters. And I’ve worked with all sorts of reporters,” Ms. Psaki said.

Daily briefings are just one way to measure how differently the State Department is operating in the early months of the Trump administration.

The State Department has also been at odds with the administration itself. In June, it issued a blistering critique of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries after they enforced a two-week embargo against Qatar, while Mr. Trump has accused Qatar of funding terrorism “at a very high level.”

This disconnect may partly explain why briefings have been curtailed.

“No one’s sure what the policy is,” Mr. Crowley said. “If you don’t know what the policy is, you don’t want to be communicating it. You don’t want to get out ahead of the president of the United States.

“If you have somebody explaining the policy in 140 characters, you also have to have somebody explain the rest.”